The reshaping of deformable components for use-on-demand, is generally well known in various arts, including ballistic missile or projectile installations as disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,704,968, 4,964,341 and 4,979,443 to Davis, Jr., Hebert and Rittel et al., respectively. The Davis, Jr. patent furthermore discloses the concept of deforming and reshaping a component made of a shape memory alloy in a projectile installation. As to the prior art availability of shape memory alloys having different properties dependent on alloy composition factors, including pseudoelasticity properties at room temperatures and lows, U.S. Pat. No. 4,894,100 to Yamauchi et al. is relevant. Such pseudoelasticity property of a shape memory alloy is based on its martensitic transition induced by stress applied thereto, and subsequent phase transformation to the austenitic state without heating by release of the stress according to the Yamauchi et al. patent, which does not however relate to or suggest use of shape memory alloy properties for prepackaging of components made from such alloys so as to improve performance involving the reshaping of the packaged components. While the Davis, Jr. patent does teach the use of a shape memory alloy to improve target penetration, such teaching is limited to reshaping the projectile in accordance with thermoelastic properties dependent on temperature conditions resulting from heat generated by target impact.
It is therefore an important object of the present invention to provide an arrangement and method for reshaping shape memory alloy components to and from a compact packaged condition, dependent exclusively on the pseudoelastic and/or superelastic property of the alloy under a wide range of operating temperatures.
It is a further object of the invention in accordance with the foregoing object to functionally improve performance of shape memory alloy components in projectiles, such as the penetration of targets by long rod penetrators, without reliance on the effects of target impact including heating to provide a rise in temperature according to the Davis, Jr. patent aforementioned herein.